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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/26337247">Old Friend</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dibleopard/pseuds/Dibleopard'>Dibleopard</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Prequel Trilogy, Star Wars: The Clone Wars (2008) - All Media Types</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Abrupt Ending, Anakin Skywalker Needs a Hug, And I won't explain it, Angst, Can be interpretted romantically, Comfort, Communication, Gen, Hermit Obi-Wan Kenobi, Hugs, Mentioned Padmé Amidala, Obi-Wan Kenobi Gets a Hug, Obi-Wan Kenobi Needs a Hug, Obi-Wan Kenobi/Anakin Skywalker if you want, Platonic Love, Post-Episode: s04e13 Escape From Kadavo, Post-Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith, Time Travel, Time Travel Fix-It, Unexplained Time Travel, or at least they try, written platonically</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-09-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-09-07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-06 02:55:46</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>2,826</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/26337247</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Dibleopard/pseuds/Dibleopard</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <em>Anakin stood on the edge of the dunes, a ridge at his back and twin suns at his left. This was unmistakably Tatooine, despite his convictions of having been on the Resolute long moments before. It could be a dream, or a vision, or a combination of the two.</em>
</p><p>In the desert he finds Obi-Wan, who has apparently been there for one and a half years. What could have caused this, and where was Obi-Wan's Anakin?</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Obi-Wan Kenobi &amp; Anakin Skywalker</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>21</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>343</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Old Friend</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Okay so this was already part written and I just sort of finished it yesterday after uploading The Price for What Prize? By this I mean to say that I don't usually upload two days in a row, it just ended up happening.<br/>Don't expect much more from me for a while; school is starting again and the pandemic really screwed me over in terms of education so that will be my priority.<br/>Also, I have, like, two major Star Wars projects plus Training Montage to work on, and the big ones are the sort that I would like as thoroughly done as possible before I even think of uploading. Just to make sure I actually finish them, you know? So work IS being done, but you won't see it for months.<br/>Anyway Obi-Wan angsting in the desert is my jam have an inexplicable time travel fic.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Anakin stood on the edge of the dunes, a ridge at his back and twin suns at his left. This was unmistakably Tatooine, despite his convictions of having been on the <em> Resolute </em> long moments before. It could be a dream, or a vision, or a combination of the two. Nightmares had plagued him since Mortis and only got worse after Zygerria; some even had the telltale sincerity of the Force at their edges, leaving him panicked and not at all in the mood for more sleep.</p><p>The Force was here, too, but not as it was in dreams or in the waking world. Too deep for one, too dark for the other, and entirely disorienting. The sand was already irritating him. Whatever this was, it had nailed exactly the discomfort Tatooine exacted on its inhabitants for merely existing. A sandstorm was approaching, a blur on the horizon foretold by a certain something in the air, and the suns were approaching the height few wanted to be outside to see. Between the elements and an insistent tug in his mind, he had no choice but to venture to the ridge.</p><p>Tatooine was a wretched planet. He had very few good memories of the place, fewer still that weren't stained by overtones of death and slavery. It was a common element of his nightmares – holding his mother limp in his arms, saying goodbye to her with only half of an idea of exactly what he was leaving her for, all with a helplessness that clawed at his throat until he woke and spent hours brushing imaginary sand off his tunics.</p><p>Anakin wondered if Obi-Wan ever felt helpless in his dreams now, after spending days in a slave labour camp. He wondered if he ever felt the heat of the furnaces while standing in the space-cold <em> Negotiator</em>. There were times when his eyes would glaze over for swift seconds before he noticed Anakin's stares and shook himself out of it and offered mental apologies with a clear, subdued sincerity that felt entirely alien.</p><p>He had taken Anakin aside, after he had changed out of the rags his robes had become and had bacta applied generously to his wounds, to say that he understood some portion of Anakin's background that he hadn't previously and to offer something between an apology and empathy. It had rubbed Anakin the wrong way, somehow, even as he noticed the marks left by the slave collar. </p><p>Obi-Wan still stood tall, after the rescue, as if it hadn't left much of an impact on him beyond the physical. He doubted that helplessness left him gasping for air at night, and wondered if Obi-Wan had ever felt anything less than in control. Even in the most dire situations, he seemed collected.</p><p>Anakin would envy him, if it was the Jedi way.</p><p>The dunes ended and the rocks began and the sand and the suns remained constant. A small homestead sat squat beyond the lip of the ridge, which he had barely climbed up when he spotted a figure standing some distance from both the house and him. </p><p>The man was wearing Jedi robes and had a force signature that was sand-blasted but familiar. He was as still as the rock around him despite the mounting winds, but the stillness was far from calm; it was the stillness of an animal caught in the light, hoping that the observer wasn't observing at all. Anakin had seen him however, and made to move towards him, pausing when the signature vanished, as if swallowed by the sand.</p><p>The man stood unchanged. Anakin picked at the Force around him but found nothing, not even the oblivious imprints of non-Force sensitives. While he was certain that there had been a signature there before, he began to question exactly how it was familiar. Struggling with the edges of his memories, he failed to place it and considered the possibility that his Tatooine-induced paranoia had fabricated it.</p><p>Everything was getting more cryptic by the minute and he was getting proportionally fed up with it.</p><p>"Hello," he called, throwing caution to the increasingly gritty wind. The man jerked almost imperceptibly. "I'm not here to hurt you, I just– I don't know why I'm here. Something tells me you do."</p><p>No response. Slowly, he ventured closer, trying to shout over the wind without letting a military tone slip into his voice. "I'm Anakin Skywalker."</p><p>Now he could see familiar blue eyes stare from under the hood, overwhelmed. The man had a beard only slightly more unkempt than it had been the day before, still the colour of faded copper.</p><p>"Obi-wan?" The eyes closed. The body remained alert. "What are you doing here? What am <em> I </em> doing here? Is this a vision? You're never on Tatooine."</p><p>"I am now," came the reply in a voice that sounded dry with disuse. "We shouldn't stay outside, sandstorms are quite unforgiving."</p><p>...</p><p>The inside of the house was enough to convince Anakin that he wasn't being subjected to some weird mishmash of memories. He had never seen it, and moreover it looked lived in, suggested a past beyond the moment he arrived. Sand inevitably dusted the floor, but surfaces were clear and small mechanical components lay about, cleaned and ready for use in whatever ongoing project they were part of.</p><p>"Vaporator parts, mostly," said Obi-Wan, avoiding his eyes while observing his eyeline in a tremendous feat of hyper-awareness, "Condensers and the like. All very boring."</p><p>"How long have you been here?"</p><p>"Not long. Only a year. Maybe a year and a half."</p><p>Anakin met his eyes sharply, "A year? What sort of mission could– And how am I– You were on the <em> Negotiator </em>yesterday! What is this? What's the Force trying to tell me?"</p><p>Obi-Wan seemed to withdraw as he worked himself up, replying carefully, "I don't know. I'd like to know myself. Perhaps my own reflections on the past weren't up to the Force's exacting standards."</p><p>"So I'm in the future? Is that it?"</p><p>"Are you Anakin Skywalker?"</p><p>"Of course! Who else would I be?"</p><p>"Any number of people. I'm quite the target, I imagine. And how better to break me once and for all than confront me with you?"</p><p>"I could never break you! And anyway, if anyone here is a fake, it's you; I know I'm real, and you're not even making a mark on the Force!"</p><p>Obi-Wan smiled grimly and his Force signature eased warily back into existence, still fainter than Anakin was used to and coated in apprehension. Anakin reached out to touch it but withdrew when Obi-Wan flinched.</p><p>“So,” said the maybe-vision, brushing past it, “The future? What’s the last thing you remember?”</p><p>“I was on the <em> Resolute</em>. We got back from Kadavo a week ago and we’ve been on milksop missions since then. I think they’re going to send the 501st on something big again soon, but I haven’t been briefed. I saw you yesterday, you were fine and <em> nowhere </em> near Tatooine.”</p><p>There had been a tiredness to Obi-Wan’s eyes for years now; Anakin hadn’t noticed when it appeared so he couldn’t say what had caused it. The Clone Wars, or perhaps it had started before Anakin’s knighting. It was deeply ingrained now, and he couldn’t remember the last time he saw Obi-Wan without it. This Obi-Wan, though, had sadness settled right beside the exhaustion, just as well worn, as if it had been there forever. It made his eyes glint even as apology wrote itself on his face.</p><p>Anakin leaned forward minutely. “What <em> happened?” </em></p><p>“A lot of things. Though, if you truly are from the past and you are meant to return, I don’t think it would be wise for me to elaborate.”</p><p>“Why not? If you don’t want to be here, you can tell me about it and when I go back I can tell <em> my </em> you not to come. Or how to fix everything. Anything! Whatever happened.”</p><p>Obi-Wan swayed away from his earnest body language. Throughout their entire meeting so far, he had been subtly keeping as much physical distance between them as possible without being obvious.</p><p>“My failures are my own, Anakin, there is little you can do to prevent this. I don’t even know the full chain of events myself – all speculation and retrospect.” His tone said he had finished speaking but his face was hesitantly forming more words. For the first time, he properly met Anakin’s eyes, seeming to want permission somehow. Anakin, unused to seeing Obi-Wan struggle with his words, could do little but stare back and search for the man who had shook his hand on a Nubian star cruiser so many years ago. When did he disappear? </p><p>“Just–” Obi-Wan sighed, “Just be careful. Be the good man I know you to be. I’ve let you down, I’ve broken your trust– or I will, I don’t– Kadavo? Was that before or after–?” He drifted and snapped back. “You may not trust me. I know you always kept things from me; that’s okay. But know that I’ve always loved you. I’ll always want what’s best for you.”</p><p><em> Love? </em> That was a big four-letter-word. <em> Love. </em> For Obi-Wan Kenobi, the perfect Jedi, an admittance of <em> love </em> was sacrosanct. There was nothing throw-away about it. <em> Love </em> from Obi-Wan Kenobi was to be revered – the total, perfect desecration of the Order he had dedicated his entire existence to, to admit attachment. And, apparently, Anakin was worthy of it.</p><p>“Are you actually saying this?” He was hesitant to ask, unwilling to risk Obi-Wan retracting his declaration. “Or am I still a vision to you? A trick?”</p><p>“I am telling Anakin Skywalker, my padawan – whether or not he is standing in this hut – that I always loved him. That if there was one thing I would like for him to have known back then, it’s that I always wanted him to be happy, even if I made mistakes that hurt him.”</p><p>Anakin was stunned. “Oh,” he said, unable to articulate much more. </p><p><em> Obi-Wan loved him.</em> Behind all of the jibes and the Jedi-cool facade, there was real, genuine love. He had always known that Obi-Wan <em> cared, </em> that much was obvious in how well they worked together, how much he cared for Ahsoka despite not being her true master. Obi-Wan was great at caring. Love was another thing altogether: a completely different depth of feeling, a soul-deep dedication that the Council could demote him for.</p><p>“I’m dead, aren’t I?” </p><p>The words clicked into place the moment they tripped off his tongue. Somehow, they were easy to accept. Between the past tense, the regret, the declaration of <em> love, </em> the truth of it lay naturally.</p><p>“You are.”</p><p>Now that he was looking, Anakin could see the mourning wrapped around Obi-Wan’s shoulders. He had worn it before, when Anakin was still nine years old and struggling to comprehend the concept of a hurt Jedi. It was ill-fitting then, unbalanced by new responsibilities, by a complete reversal of roles. Between Naboo and Tatooine, he had grown into it. In fact it seemed tailor-made for him – or him for it.</p><p>The idea made Anakin’s throat brace.</p><p>Slowly, telegraphing his movements, he stepped forwards and brought Obi-Wan into an embrace. His Master had never been particularly tactile and initially he stiffened at the contact. Then, with stilted movements, he brought his arms up to return it.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” said Anakin.</p><p>“So am I,” said Obi-Wan.</p><p>They stood like that for longer than Anakin’s mind could measure. At some point, Obi-Wan had allowed the tension to melt off his frame and let his head – gradually, as if giving Anakin time to escape – fall into the crook of Anakin’s neck. Anakin simply sighed and leaned his face into Obi-Wan’s hair.</p><p>Obi-Wan was seeing a ghost. A year and a half was a long time to mourn. The least Anakin could do was provide this small comfort. He didn’t know how he had died, or why Obi-Wan was no longer at his home in the Temple – for as much as Anakin was hesitant to take the title away from his mother’s small slave-quarters, the Temple would always be Obi-Wan’s home – but he knew that if it had been Obi-Wan who had died and Anakin stuck in hermitude, the one thing he would want from a ghost would be the reassurance of still being loved despite it all.</p><p>He felt a wetness on his neck and Obi-Wan jerked back, catching on Anakin’s arms, covering his face to wipe his eyes. Anakin let go slowly, allowing Obi-Wan to return to his previous distance.</p><p>“I’m sorry, I–”</p><p>“It’s okay. I’d probably cry too,” smiled Anakin, feeling his own eyes prick. Obi-Wan shook his head as if denying he was crying at all. They sniffled at each other, breathy laughs carrying over their attempts not to embarrass themselves.</p><p>“My offer still stands, by the way.” Obi-Wan looked up at the non-sequitur. “If I go back– If I remember this, I can try to fix this. I’ll be careful; I won’t let myself die, I’ll try to stop whatever the rest of it is, I promise.”</p><p>Obi-Wan looked through him for a while, lips thin as he conducted an internal debate. Then: “The way things went, so much of it was out of our control but… I think… If there had been more trust between us – the two of us – events may not have been so easily swayed.”</p><p>“What do you mean?”</p><p>“The Sith Master, he’s more powerful than any of us suspected, even when we were beginning to suspect. I have no idea how many contingencies he had planned, how much of it was unavoidable–”</p><p>“Who is he?”</p><p>“I fear… telling you may not be the best option. Leaving you in the dark, however, is also dangerous.” He exhaled, thought again, and said, “I know about you and Padmé.”</p><p>That caught Anakin off-guard. He stared wide-eyed until Obi-Wan continued.</p><p>“You were hardly subtle. All the way back to Geonosis. I knew.” He was smiling and a familiar twinkle returned to his eyes. “Perhaps I underestimated your willingness to get married after a week – a <em> week</em>, Anakin, didn’t I teach you patience? But I knew about the relationship.”</p><p>Still reeling but finally grappling speech, Anakin said, “<em>What? </em>Why didn’t you tell anyone? The Council–! The Code–!”</p><p>“Because she made you happy, Anakin. She made you happy where I could not.” He said it so simply, as if it were the most obvious thing in the galaxy. As if it were obvious that the man who acted as if he owed the Order everything, the Jedi Master and Councilmember would put aside the most fundamental rule on attachment and allow his padawan to go behind his back to marry all because it simply made Anakin happy.</p><p>“I’m sorry I ever made you feel as if you couldn’t tell me these things. I know there were other secrets, more well-guarded, that were slowly consuming you. You never told me those and I wish that I could have been there to help.”</p><p>“I…”</p><p>“Look, I know it’s a lot to ask but– I’ve only ever wanted to help you. Please, if you go back, just… trust me. Ask me to help and I will. And… if anyone – <em> anyone </em> – leads you to think I don’t care or that I’d never be able to understand, don’t believe them. Let me know and I’ll rectify the mistake. <em> Tell me.” </em> Urgency had filled Obi-Wan’s voice and he looked as if he wanted to grab Anakin by the shoulders to shake the point home.</p><p>“Okay,” said Anakin, worried at how much importance was being placed on simple communication. Okay, perhaps it wouldn’t be simple, but it shouldn’t be of such world-ending consequence as Obi-Wan was conveying. “Okay. I will.”</p><p>“Don’t condemn yourself, Anakin, you don’t have to struggle alone. I’m here. I’ll always be here, even after you’re gone.”</p><p>Anakin nodded, thinking it all through. “How does this prevent me dying?”</p><p>Obi-Wan almost shrugged. “We can only hope it will.”</p><p>“And that’s it? Just… talk to you?”</p><p>“Frustratingly straightforward, wouldn’t you say?” Obi-Wan’s face seemed to know the frustration intimately, even as he smiled. All this mourning, all this grief, because Anakin hid from him? Everything on Obi-Wan’s shoulders when his only fault was having a padawan who didn’t trust him enough to seek help.</p><p>Relative to it all, his honesty was the least he could offer. He owed it to try. Such a small thing…</p><p>The conversation was reaching its conclusion, they both knew. Two sets of eyes, both long dead in their own ways, met and held.</p><p>“I’ll try, Obi-Wan.”</p><p>“Thank you.”</p><p>“I love you.”</p><p>Tears began to fall again from Obi-Wan’s eyes. He refused to break eye contact.</p><p>“Thank you,” he said, voice breaking, “I love you too.”</p><p>Anakin was crying then. They both cried, both memorised each other’s eyes, and then Anakin was gone.</p><p>“I love you,” Obi-Wan repeated to the air.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Sorry if that was not the ending you were looking for; the results of the conversation were never my focus, just Obi-Wan and Anakin sorting through things :)<br/>Hope you liked it!</p></blockquote></div></div>
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